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It was obvious to all observers that an attack upon the slave-dealing and slave-hunting establishments of Egypt by a foreigner an Englishman would be equal to a raid upon a hornets' nest, that all efforts to suppress the old-established traffic in negro slaves would be encountered with a determined opposition, and that the prime agent and leader of such an expedition must be regarded "with hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness."
The slave-hunting was now at an end throughout an immense district, as the slave-hunters had ceased to exist south of Gondokoro. Excepting Unyoro, the days of bloodshed were past. The "Forty Thieves", who had so gallantly stood by me through every difficulty, never again had an enemy before them. I was devoutly thankful for days of peace.
He had been in the habit of sending out his armed bands on slave-hunting expeditions among the helpless tribes to the north-west, selling his victims at Quillimane, where they were shipped as free emigrants to the French island of Bourbon.
There were a number of other voyages, including a further exploration by La Cosa and Vespucci, and a second by Ojeda in which an abortive attempt was made to found a colony; but most of the voyages were mere trading expeditions, slave-hunting enterprises or searches, generally fruitless, for gold and pearls. Ojeda reported after one of these voyages that the English were on the coast.
The population of the richest province of the Soudan fled from oppression, and abandoned the country; and the greater portion betook themselves to the slave trade of the White Nile, where, in their turn, they might trample upon the rights of others; where, as they had been plundered, they would be able to plunder; where they could reap the harvest of another's labour; and where, free from the restrictions of a government, they might indulge in the exciting and lucrative enterprise of slave-hunting.
The Free Church of Scotland had sent out the Reverend J. Stewart to form a mission. Before doing so he wisely determined to survey the country thoroughly. After doing this he returned to England. He found mere remnants of a once dense population on the banks of the Shire, now scattered and destroyed by famine and slave-hunting.
At the time he was there, and now also, the leading men were all more or less engaged in slave-hunting, and no one dared to say a word against them. Gordon wanted to introduce an independent class of traders, who would soon be sufficiently powerful to give evidence against the leaders of the slave-hunting system.
It seemed incomprehensible to the Shillook natives that a government that had only lately made slave-hunting a profession should suddenly turn against the slave-hunters.
We had been delayed all day, by constantly going astray on the innumerable faint tracks, which, in this part of the country, begin nowhere in particular, and end nowhere at all. The jungle-dwelling tribes of Sĕmang, who alone inhabit these woods, guard their camps jealously, for, until lately, they were often raided by slave-hunting bands of Malays and Sâkai.
"The only drawback to this honest trade would be the general hatred of anything honest by the Khartoumers; the charms of cattle razzias and slave-hunting, with the attendant murders, attract these villanous cut-throats to the White Nile expeditions, and I fear it would be difficult to raise the number of armed men required for safety, were legitimate trade the sole object of the ivory hunter.
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